By all means, I support the idea of making sure that everyone legally entitled to live and work where they reside should be able to have the necessities of life -- food, water, shelter -- and of course all of the other rights that come with such entitlement. I don't think that the correct solution is to hand out money to everyone.

The most obvious impact such a plan would have is to cause inflation across the board. By introducing more money into the system, the value of the currency diminishes, so prices go up to compensate, which means that the plan would need to increase payouts in order to keep poor people out of poverty, which just puts the whole thing in a downward spiral.

Even discounting the inflationary aspect of it, though, it sounds like a hasty, poorly-thought-out solution to the inefficiencies and troubles with the current welfare and unemployment system, and it works at cross causes to many (if not most) income tax reform proposals. If we're going to avoid EXCESSIVE inflation, the money has to come from somewhere, and that "somewhere" is, quite simply, taxes.

I'm going to avoid going into too significant of an economics lecture here, but... while I applaud the INTENT, I don't see the plan as described as being a good idea.

The money doesn't come from nowhere. Government just takes the tax revenue which would otherwise go toward determining who's eligible for which benefits and how much, and instead hands it out equally to all citizens.

Hello!

Praise be to Athè, and Hob, Her living vessel.2<3For I have crescent pies to bakeAnd smiles to throw before I wake